Update: Even better!

Hey. I just got a call from my enrollment counselor, and he managed to get me started on December 10th. Even better.

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Update: I'm in!

OK. I know I'm skipping ahead a little bit, but I started this blog a couple weeks late, and I'm too excited about yesterday's developments to hold off until I get caught up. So please bear with me, and I'll get the old information to you as soon as I find the time. But for now...

I'm in! I just got all my paperwork in yesterday, and I'm going to be starting December 17th. I just want to say that my enrollment counselor kicks ass, and I'm really grateful that he's been patient with me and all my indecision. Originally, I wasn't supposed to start until January but there's been a lot of stuff going on in my life at the moment, and I knew that if I was going to do this I had to do it now. So I called him up yesterday, and asked about moving up my start date. He said he could, and then I wasn't sure again so I said I'd call him back. I called him back at least three more times yesterday, until finally I gave him the go ahead. There was a simple form that I had to print out and fax back to him. Generally, you can do this form online, but I had to have my information in that day in order to get my December 17th start date.

So I go to print out the form, and my printer isn't working and then my neighbor's fax machine is out of ink!!! Argh!

Let's just say that I was running around yesterday like a crazy, wild man but I got everything done. I called my counselor for like the fifth or sixth time yesterday, and he congratulated me and we laughed about all the craziness.

My experience with the University of Phoenix, has thus far been unproblematic. My side of things though? :)

To celebrate, I ordered a new Dell Vostro 1000 notebook computer. I'll tell you all about that later.

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OK. I'll do this! Where do I start?

By Google-ing, of course. I typed University of Phoenix into the search box, and clicked on the first link that came up. There's a convenient, little, blue Get Started Today box located on the left side of their main page. I clicked on it, and filled out the form that it led me to, and I got a call the next day...

Next: "My First Conversation with my Enrollment Consultant"

To be followed by: "My Second Conversation with my Enrollment Consultant"

and: "My Third Conversation with my Enrollment Consultant"

and: "My Thirty-Third Conversation with my Enrollment Consultant"

and: (I think you get the picture. I had a lot of questions. :)

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Should I really do this?

I didn't put much time or energy into thinking about this. I sort of did it on a whim. I've been pretty lucky, and have had a good amount of success in my life with my jobs, without having a degree. I've got friends who have spent much time and money earning degrees of their own, and many of them are working the same dead-end jobs that they had before graduating, and they might be earning a little or a lot more, but they also got a big debt to pay off now.

I wasn't so smart earlier in my life. Right out of high school I had a scholarship to go to a local University. It was a full ride. At the time, though, I was determined to be a "rock star" and figured that if I didn't have enough talent to make it before school, then I still wasn't going to be talented enough after I graduated. Looking back, I think that I was just afraid of the entrance audition, since I had always been last chair in any band that I was in up to that point.Then a year or so later, I did decide to go to college after some guy at a job placement center pissed me off when he told me that I needed to be more practical with my choices, even after I totally blew the placement test apart and scored high enough to do whatever I wanted. I enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh. But I was still young, and arrogant at the time. And by then I was a "rock star", only I wasn't playing in any bands or anything. I partied myself out of school within the first three months, which was hard because by the second week I was two months ahead in my studies. LOL

So now I'm old and bored. I don't party any more, and I don't do much reading or studying on my own anymore; not to mention TV and music both pretty much suck now. So what's a (29 year) old man like me do today? Go try and get an actual degree, and find out if I'm really as smart as I think that I am. :)

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"From the ashes rises the sun..."

So why did I decide to pursue a degree at this point in my life?

Why not!

I've been doing pretty well in my life recently, after spending a great deal of time in a rut that I thought that I'd never escape from. I'm grateful now! I've got a job that I finally feel like I have the chance at some longevity. And although it does not pay all that well, it fulfills a big vacancy that was there with all the other jobs I've had up to this point in my life. I'm doing good now, so why not see how far I can travel in this positive direction?

Why pursue a degree online?

Convenience. I work A LOT!!! But fortunately for me I spend good portion of that time sitting around making sure that the people I take care of sleep well. I'm not really into television, and my workout program is still yet to kick-off, so what better to do what my time than try to increase my earning potential and make up for all the money that I'm not getting now?

Plus, I'm a big computer geek, but I hate fixing other people's computers, so there's no way in hell that I was going to make any money with these skills, other than running office applications or clicking on-screen answers to get to the thing that I could say that would persuade somebody on the other side of the telephone to buy something they don't need, or even worse - TECH SUPPORT!

Why University of Phoenix?

Probably because I've heard more about them than other online schools. Sure, they have a good PR department, but even businesses with a good PR department don't stick around if they don't perform well.

Plus, I'm pretty into the mythical figure that they use in their logo...

I'll give you more in-depth information later. Peruse their site for now, if you wish. And if you decide to request information from them, trust me, you will hear from somebody really soon.


Next: Should I really do this?

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